Wayne Easter

[Business of Supply, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, if I were allowed to use as props the dozens that have come into my riding, I could show some pictures that are as bad as the body bags, such as farmers in handcuffs, their hands behind their backs. The pictures send a message. You have made my point, sir, in that that ten percenter should not have gone out. That is not a good use of taxpayers' money. It has to stop.

[Business of Supply, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this motion just deals with the ten percenter issue. There is other fora to get information out, such as the media.

The motion is talking about immediately ending sending mass mailings into ridings other than a member's own riding. A member is the representative of the people in his or her riding and the member should be able to inform them on government policy and provide feedback to those constituents. Leaders' offices in all parties have other means of getting information out. What we have been seeing is the practice where MPs, controlled to a great extent by their centres, are putting out information from the caucus that is often strictly for partisan purposes and is often misinformation. We all do it; I put out about four a month. However, I believe it has to stop.

[Business of Supply, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this is what we get into with the current government. Rather than accepting their responsibility as a government and dealing with the motion, the Conservatives go back to some of the misinformation that was provided when they were in opposition.

Let us deal with the real issues. Let us deal with these ten percenters going out to the ridings. Let us deal with the government waste.

The member must admit that this is the biggest full-size cabinet and there is waste there. He must admit that the Privy Council Office spending is going up. He must admit that the Conservatives have sent out something like 10 million pieces of literature, called ten percenters, that is nothing more than propaganda, hate mail and misinformation and that it has to stop.

I am asking the member to deal with the real issue and to help us stop this stuff from going out to Canadians and angering Canadians about the political process.

[Business of Supply, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I could fire these in the air. There is so many of them they would pollute this place with Conservative propaganda. Those are what come into my riding.

As far as I am concerned, it is just propaganda. I cannot say in how many instances when I have gone into a post office that about 50% of them have been thrown into the garbage can because constituents across Canada actually believe those ten percenters are nothing but a waste of money. It is not about providing information. It is about providing propaganda. The original intent was to provide information on government programs to constituents. Ten percenters have evolved into being little more than propaganda pieces for partisan purposes by all parties, but worst of all, the government party.

What comes into my riding is mostly misinformation, personal attacks on me and my leader. In some instances, it is nothing short of hate mail. Let me give an example. One that came in goes after my leader; I know I cannot name him in the House. It states that he has called himself (a) a samurai warrior, (b) a cosmopolitan or (c) horribly arrogant. It is full of lots of pictures.

This literature, this ten percenter, is designed to undermine an individual's credibility. It is certainly not designed to outline government policy. It attempts in subtle and not so subtle ways to demonize the leader of the official opposition or, in my own case, me. It undermines him as an individual. It personalizes the issue. It raises questions in people's minds on character. It raises suspicions. Is that good use of taxpayers' money?

We all came here to debate issues. That is what we came here to do, instead now, it has become personalized and there are attacks on individuals. These ten percenters are part of the problem. They are a huge part of the problem. They are a waste of money. Millions of dollars are being wasted.

I would like to get into the one about me, the one the Conservatives sent about me which basically asks if I am here. It leaves the impression that I was not here for a vote, when actually I was here 100% to vote in the last Parliament.

The bottom line is that this kind of propaganda must stop. I encourage the House to vote against this propaganda, to stand up and stop these attacks.

[Business of Supply, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, they react over there, but the truth hurts. They hate to hear the truth but the truth does hurt indeed.

Let us look at the PCO and the PMO. Wow, the expenditures there; that is where the big spending happens. That is a power centre controlled by the Prime Minister, which is interesting and sad at the same time. In that area spending is going up, a 21% increase, while everywhere else spending is frozen. Again, this is being used to propagandize the Canadian people.

Under the Conservatives, spending on transportation and communication has risen by $820 million or 32% over its 2005-06 level. Spending on management consultants has gone up by $355 million over the same period, an astounding 165% increase over the previous Liberal government. That is atrocious. That is an area where there can be spending control and it could make such a difference.

The second part of the motion deals with an area that this House could direct. I will read this part of the motion again:

...the House directs its Board of Internal Economy to take all necessary steps to end immediately the wasteful practice of Members sending mass mailings, known as “ten-percenters”, into ridings other than their own, which could represent another saving to taxpayers of more than $10 million.

I have here, Mr. Speaker, and I will keep it down so it is out of camera—

[Business of Supply, March 15th, 2010]

I will say in the House that I believe it is designed that way so that they can get out there, do the photo ops—

[Business of Supply, March 15th, 2010]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should show leadership in reducing government waste by rolling-back its own expenditures on massive amounts of partisan, taxpayer-paid government advertising, ministerial use of government aircraft, the hiring of external “consultants”, and the size of the Cabinet, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office, which together could represent a saving to taxpayers of more than a billion dollars; and to show its own leadership in this regard, the House directs its Board of Internal Economy to take all necessary steps to end immediately the wasteful practice of Members sending mass mailings, known as “ten-percenters”, into ridings other than their own, which could represent another saving to taxpayers of more than $10 million.

Mr. Speaker, I am most pleased to move this motion. I will be splitting my time with the seconder of the motion, the member for Winnipeg South Centre.

I am most pleased to move this motion as it gives both the government and the House direction in a realistic way in a number of areas where substantial savings could be made. The first part of the motion deals with government waste and rolling back a lot of government expenditures that are paid for by taxpayers, everything from advertising and the size of the cabinet to the size of the Privy Council Office. The second part of the motion deals with what we call ten percenters. I will get to that in a moment.

Adoption of this motion and these expenditure reductions would make for better government, less propaganda and maybe even a little more honesty in what goes out to Canadians from this place. Let me start with the part of the motion that deals with reduced government waste by rolling back massive amounts of taxpayer-paid partisan government advertising.

I know I am not allowed to use props and I will not, but I have in my hand a full-page ad that was in Prince Edward Island's Journal Pioneer last Wednesday or Thursday, and Saturday's The Guardian. This ad has been in every paper across the country in the last few weeks.

Never in Canadian history, I believe, have we seen as much propaganda come from a government, no doubt straight out of the PMO, designed not so much to provide information as to leave the impression that the governing party is doing more than it really is but, worse, attempting to leave the impression that it is doing something it really is not.

All Canadians have seen the ad in the papers, on TV and on the Internet. I would love to go through the copy I have to point out the areas of error but I do not have time at the moment. It would be one thing if it were honest fact, but to a great extent this ad and others like it are a work of fiction, with some truths and a lot of half-truths thrown in. Taxpayers' money in the hundreds of millions of dollars has been used I believe to manipulate the public mind.

Let me mention a couple of points to show where this ad is misleading. The full-page ad talks about measures in the budget, such as lowering taxes. Nothing could be further from the truth. What about income trusts being taxed? What about payroll taxes going up an extraordinary amount to a point in 2011 where it is expected that that tax increase alone could cause the loss of 200,000 jobs? The ad leaves the impression that the government is lowering taxes.

My role is agriculture critic for the Liberal Party. The government is leaving the impression it is doing something when it comes to agriculture. Never have we seen such a record of failure. In the hog industry, there is the worst financial crisis ever in Canadian history. The beef industry is not far behind. There has been a $9 billion increase in farm debt in the term of the Conservative government. Safety nets are paying out $1 billion less and there is not one dime in the budget. It is mentioned in the ad to leave the impression that the government is doing something. I would love to go through them one by one, but time does not allow me to do that.

There is more waste with the huge increase in the size of the cabinet, as was mentioned in the motion. Everyone in the cabinet is a full cabinet minister with huge staffs, cars and drivers, research departments and heaven knows what else. One can only ask whether it is to have more people to push photo ops, publish propaganda, raise funds for the party or what? It is the first cabinet in our history in which all cabinet ministers have cars and all the paraphernalia. What a waste.

[Agriculture, March 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion by the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and I support it. I will repeat the motion so it is on the record again:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should ensure that production management tools available to Canadian farmers are similar to those of other national jurisdictions by considering equivalent scientific research and agricultural regulatory approval processes by Health Canada, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

I support the motion, but it should be understood that the motion does not really change anything. On the positive side, it might give a little more impetus to moving it a little faster to some equivalency, especially with the United States in terms of not total harmonization, because we have to protect our sovereignty as well, but to more harmonization in areas that make sense and that would allow our producers to be more competitive.

As I said, it might move it along. The motion only asks the government to do something. When the House asks the government to do something, the government does not listen very well. The record is, when the House is really strenuous, forceful and taking on a very serious issue, the Prime Minister might just close the place down. We have to recognize this is the reality of the world. This is only a motion, coming from one of the Conservatives' own backbench members, almost pleading with the government to do something, and I can understand that.

Today the chief government whip got up in the House on debate on the budget. When he was asked a question about why there was not a dime for primary producers in the budget, he bragged about there being a little over 100 rural members. That is a wonderful thing, but they are 100 rural members in the backbenches who are not listened to. When they suggest something is falling on deaf ears, that does not do anything for rural Canada. My point is this is a motion and while it is important and I support it, we really need something that will force the government's hand to actually move.

I certainly congratulate the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex for providing some leadership on this issue because leadership has been absolutely lacking from the minister. At least we are getting a little leadership from the backbench. Maybe we are getting none from the front bench, but we are getting a little leadership from the backbench and that is a good thing.

What would the motion do? The intent of the motion is to allow Canadian authorities to approve products already used in other countries if their regulatory process and their research methods to produce the data are deemed equivalent to those of the Canadian system. That is a very important point because we need that to happen.

As the member explained, and I will give a little summary of what he said, we have all kinds of instances where a Canadian producer is producing Canadian products. However, because maybe our regulatory system is slower sometimes, maybe the applications have not come in from the companies, or for whatever reason, the product, whether it is a pesticide, a herbicide a veterinarian medicine or whatever it may be, has not been approved in Canada. I believe there is a production plant in the member's riding.

Sometimes these products are even produced in Canada and may be more effective and cheaper. They are for sale in the United States but one cannot buy them as a Canadian producer and they may make that producer more competitive. Therefore, we are waiting for a regulatory system to move and approve the product but while we are waiting our producers are actually in a non-competitive position.

This is something that the government could move on very rapidly in other ways. The interesting thing is that the food, whether it is a crop or whether it is an animal product, produced with using that herbicide, pesticide or veterinarian medicine that is not allowed in Canada because it is not approved but is allowed in the United States, ends up on Canadian grocery store shelves and Canadian consumers consume them and our producers are not competitive. It just does not make sense.

That is just a summary of what this motion would really do to help Canadian farmers if the government listens to the member's motion and does something.

If the truth be known, the move toward bringing some equivalency and assisting our farmers in being competitive has been a long time coming. It started as long ago as 2002 when the global joint review was brought in by the PMRA, Pest Management Regulatory Agency.

We have had many battles, as the member knows, with PMRA at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food trying to convince it to get rid of the backlog, get products approved and through the system so that they are available to producers.

However, I will say, in fairness to Health Canada and the PMRA, that I think they are getting rid of the backlog. I do not know if it is completely gone but they have moved some distance in getting rid of that backlog. I congratulate them on that.

What really needs to be done? Pesticides, herbicides and veterinarian drugs that are available in the United States really need to be available for Canadian farmers on a competitive basis.

I do not believe the member mentioned the whole area of seeds, seed registration, fertilizers and so on. Although we like to think we are the bread basket of the world, and we are great producers and efficient producers of high quality products, when a big company is looking at producing a seed, a herbicide or a chemical, it tends to produce it where the big mass market is which is often the central and western United States. A big company is not willing to invest money in research to get into a smaller market like Canada.

What this motion would do, if the government moved on it, is put our producers at a more competitive advantage. As a result, it would not put the companies through the same huge costs in order to register a product in this country, which would be a good thing.

A number of other things could be done and I want to mention a couple beyond this motion. CFIA needs more inspectors. One of the problems that is not allowing our producers to be competitive is that the products that come in from all over the world do not meet the same requirements that Canadian producers must meet but it ends up on our grocery store shelves. The government needs to spend money to hire inspectors to ensure that products that come in here do not disadvantage Canadian producers and come in under the same standards as Canadian producers must meet.

It is the same in terms of security measures that are being imposed on our Canadian agriculture retailers. We are imposing a cost on them that is actually paid for by the Americans in terms of their fertilizer and chemical suppliers. Those costs go back down to primary producers. The government could be doing the same as the U.S. and paying those costs.

The government could be doing a number of things beyond this motion. My only problem with the motion is that there is no way of forcing the government's hand. To date, without the Conservatives' hand being forced, they have absolutely failed the farm community. It is a good motion but their failure speaks for itself.

[Agriculture, March 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the member put forward this motion. I agree very much with his summary.

Does the motion require any legislative changes in order to get the job done? Health Canada and two agencies, PMRA under Health Canada and CFIA under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, are involved.

Does the motion require any legislative change that would force the government to do what he wants to do? He is a backbencher in the government, and I do not trust the government. Any time the government says it will do something, it really does not do it. What is here to pressure the government to do what the member wants it to do? We know the minister has said he is putting farmers first, but he has never done it. What is here to force the government to do what the member is asking?

[The Economy, March 12th, 2010]

A touch.